Opening the Question: On the Question You Ask Depends the Answer You Get

As litigators, we’re in the question-asking business. Trials and depositions are the most obvious settings, but questioning is (or at least should be) a pervasive part of a lawyer’s practice. We investigate underlying facts. We interview witnesses. We explore alternative solutions. A lawyer who isn’t curious, who doesn’t ask questions, is not a lawyer who can expect success.

This article in the April 2017 issue of The Circuit Rider: The Journal of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association addresses the skill of asking good questions in daily practice and how to frame questions to learn new information.